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Smallpox was a god of death which one could hope to avoid and defend against, but never kill, from at least 300 BCE until 1958. Humanity finished the job in 197

Smallpox was a god of death which one could hope to avoid and defend against, but never kill, from at least 300 BCE until 1958. Humanity finished the job in 1977 (for now). While there are many things to criticize about anarchist thought and practice, one thing I hope will never stop and we should not dismiss as "utopian" is the sheer gumption to question one of the fundamental assumption in almost all political ideologies - that someone must be in charge - and then seriously consider the implications of trying to structure a society not only without coercion, but also with positive freedoms. I.e. , at it's best, anarchist thought tries to find ways of ensuring welfare and ensuring that the "private charity and philanthropy" often cited as the solution to poverty will manifest as a feature of the system, without needing to rely on (soft) coercion, scarcity and centralization, to the point of considering ways on how to structure meetings so that the shy and slow will also be allowed to contribute their perspective and thoughts against the brash and bold. While I might not agree 100% politically, I think we should point to (and if so inclined, work on) specific problems we find in the arguments/implementation and not shy away from the ambition itself.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
I think your first paragraph is a bad analogy. Because we did it in medicine doesn't say we can also do it in politics. Politics is a lot harder.
- igorkraw 5y ago
  The point to take from it is (in my opinion) that our grasp might exceed our reach if we do not shy away tackling big projects at on some level. There is a fine line between this and "just believe and it will become true" bruhaha, but I agree with Hans Rosling on his idea of "possibilism" http://thirdways.net/factfulness-possibilists-book/ http://thirdways.net/factfulness-possibilists-book/ vs pessimism and optimism. If the only criticism people can muster is "seems a bit much", then they didn't really engage with it. You can make an argument that hierarchies seem "natural", but "naturally" I and many others should be dead (childhood diseases), basically blind (very near sighted), multiple times a father already (nearing my 30s and sexually active) so even that is not really a strong rebuttal of the anarchist project. I think it might exist, but it warrants proper ponderance (at least when discussing deep thinkers like Bookchin), not dismissal.
  - jancsika 5y ago
    > I.e. , at it's best, anarchist thought tries to find ways of ensuring welfare and ensuring that the "private charity and philanthropy" often cited as the solution to poverty will manifest as a feature of the system, without needing to rely on (soft) coercion, scarcity and centralization, to the point of considering ways on how to structure meetings so that the shy and slow will also be allowed to contribute their perspective and thoughts against the brash and bold. Maybe it's just me, but the anarchist writing I've skimmed seems to fetishize the mechanisms they think will achieve the world they want to see. I mean, suppose you beamed some pre-digital anarchists to the early 2000s and showed them how Python development was done over the internet. Are they going to be able to grasp the essence of what's happening? E.g., "Oh, I see there's a trap door under that so-called benevolent dictator. So anyone in the world with access to the internet could pull the lever to fork his kingdom and do with it as they see fit with their new copy of it. I suppose that's a playfully clever end-run around decentralization. Great job!" Something tells me they are going to say, "A benevolent dictator is centralized. That's bad and so we must work to obliterate the hierarchy." I think that because there seem to have been a number of bright digital-era anarchists who wasted reams of time trying to decentralize a design that could have been done much more easily as a centralized project with a free software license.
    - igorkraw 5y ago
      First: I agree with you, but it's a general human failing to fall in love with our own solutions or just ones that we vibe with. I think the critiques are always more generalisable than the solutions. That being said, I think it's idle speculation, because it depends on how well you explain the state of the world, how open the human you are grabbing would be etc. It also depends how paranoid you are about communities being stuck to a single point of failure (most BFDL really aren't, in that there is a lot of dependence on the "underlings" that is made explicit in the structure of things, but the brand and spirit of the community might depend on them being around as a Schelling point) and other factors. I also think it is very worthwhile to think about decentralising the BFDL model if you make it work by self selection, I mainly study the mechanisms of well working anarchist groups and most that I see are as heavy on Praxis (actually improving material conditions) as on theory and ideology. I'd recommend trying to look up organisations like this (in Germany, the FAU is an example for an anarchist Union that has risen to the challenge of organising gig workers and are very interesting to read about)

AnimalMuppet 5y ago

I think your first paragraph is a bad analogy. Because we did it in medicine doesn't say we can also do it in politics. Politics is a lot harder.

igorkraw 5y ago
The point to take from it is (in my opinion) that our grasp might exceed our reach if we do not shy away tackling big projects at on some level. There is a fine line between this and "just believe and it will become true" bruhaha, but I agree with Hans Rosling on his idea of "possibilism" http://thirdways.net/factfulness-possibilists-book/ http://thirdways.net/factfulness-possibilists-book/ vs pessimism and optimism. If the only criticism people can muster is "seems a bit much", then they didn't really engage with it. You can make an argument that hierarchies seem "natural", but "naturally" I and many others should be dead (childhood diseases), basically blind (very near sighted), multiple times a father already (nearing my 30s and sexually active) so even that is not really a strong rebuttal of the anarchist project. I think it might exist, but it warrants proper ponderance (at least when discussing deep thinkers like Bookchin), not dismissal.
- jancsika 5y ago
  > I.e. , at it's best, anarchist thought tries to find ways of ensuring welfare and ensuring that the "private charity and philanthropy" often cited as the solution to poverty will manifest as a feature of the system, without needing to rely on (soft) coercion, scarcity and centralization, to the point of considering ways on how to structure meetings so that the shy and slow will also be allowed to contribute their perspective and thoughts against the brash and bold. Maybe it's just me, but the anarchist writing I've skimmed seems to fetishize the mechanisms they think will achieve the world they want to see. I mean, suppose you beamed some pre-digital anarchists to the early 2000s and showed them how Python development was done over the internet. Are they going to be able to grasp the essence of what's happening? E.g., "Oh, I see there's a trap door under that so-called benevolent dictator. So anyone in the world with access to the internet could pull the lever to fork his kingdom and do with it as they see fit with their new copy of it. I suppose that's a playfully clever end-run around decentralization. Great job!" Something tells me they are going to say, "A benevolent dictator is centralized. That's bad and so we must work to obliterate the hierarchy." I think that because there seem to have been a number of bright digital-era anarchists who wasted reams of time trying to decentralize a design that could have been done much more easily as a centralized project with a free software license.
  - igorkraw 5y ago
    First: I agree with you, but it's a general human failing to fall in love with our own solutions or just ones that we vibe with. I think the critiques are always more generalisable than the solutions. That being said, I think it's idle speculation, because it depends on how well you explain the state of the world, how open the human you are grabbing would be etc. It also depends how paranoid you are about communities being stuck to a single point of failure (most BFDL really aren't, in that there is a lot of dependence on the "underlings" that is made explicit in the structure of things, but the brand and spirit of the community might depend on them being around as a Schelling point) and other factors. I also think it is very worthwhile to think about decentralising the BFDL model if you make it work by self selection, I mainly study the mechanisms of well working anarchist groups and most that I see are as heavy on Praxis (actually improving material conditions) as on theory and ideology. I'd recommend trying to look up organisations like this (in Germany, the FAU is an example for an anarchist Union that has risen to the challenge of organising gig workers and are very interesting to read about)